Yi He Yuan

Whether there is freedom and love or not, in death everyone is equal. I hope that death is not your end. You adored the light, so you will never fear the darkness.

Recently, I had a sudden urge to watch the banned film "The Flowers of War" by director Lou Ye. After watching it, I still couldn't figure out why it was called that, as it has nothing to do with the Summer Palace. During the search for resources, I found both a 134-minute and a 140-minute version, and ultimately chose the latter. My mental journey during the viewing was as follows: What the heck is this? It's all about love and sex. So Lou Ye is into this? He likes to use sex to express the confusion and aimlessness of young people? I always consider myself a down-to-earth person, and I admit that I really couldn't understand what the director was trying to convey. So I will look for other materials to help me understand. I feel that Lou Ye wanted to capture the fate of individuals in the historical tide. I can sense the director's ambition, but it's really hard to understand. Without professional explanations, I admit that I really couldn't get it! Why can't the director just tell a clear story? Not everyone can understand metaphors, of course, that's the charm of art films. It's endlessly intriguing and captivating, making one want to explore further. This is the allure of the unknown, and curiosity drives us to meet. Alright, Lou Ye, you win!

"Because it is only when we make love that you understand that I'm gentle."

That's all the character development I need. This is an ambitious film about the stalled maturation of an idealistic but troubled young woman flanked by the Tiananmen Square protests, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the handover of Hong Kong to mainland China. The film spans a decade and a half from 1987 to 2003 so I guess the misery of Three Gorges Dam couldn't make the final cut. The direction is a little chaotic at times but it reflects the nature of the film and doesn't come off as too much of a liability. The soundtrack is impeccably chosen and the film is ultimately very sad. I was glued to this 140 minute masterpiece. Politics aside, and they are on the side, this is a remarkable film in its honest portrayal of failure, not of personal character necessarily, but of circumstance.

This is another film that got its director and producer banned for five years from making films in China. Maybe it's the full-frontal nudity or the sheer quantity of sex scenes but I don't see the need for hubbub. The film is about a woman's self-reflection on why she finds comfort in the arms of different men. We see her naked inside and out. She is afraid to love out of fear, fear of something she hasn't yet experienced, but isn't that the scariest kind of fear?

There are a number of things wrong with the film, perhaps, but very little could be done to improve it. Great films succeed in spite of their weaknesses. I'm not a fan of off camera narration but it works for me here. It seems additional rather than necessary. There is a maturity to the woman's voice as she narrates with entries from her diary that compliment, do not seem at odds with, the can't quite grow up activities of the woman on screen. In order to get from the Berlin Wall to the Hong Kong Handover, 1989 to 1997, we're treated to narrative on screen text to fill us in on what's happening to the characters. Ordinarily that would be a deal breaker for me, in theory at least, but again, it works. Finally, as if this were a real story about real people, after the final denouement occurs we're given updates on what happened or didn't happen to the principle characters. Frankly, as gut-wrenchingly sad but true as the final scene is I wish it would have just faded to black. But I think it's a tribute to the strength of the characters that I found myself intrigued by the postscript.

Having said that, I think one could argue that from a strictly script perspective a little more fleshing out was in order ... and I don't mean that full-frontally. I think it comes down to this: if you've ever known passionate, poetic, misguided people, you know these people right away. They're part beautiful and part brutal, there's no talking them out of it. That's the point. This film doesn't set out to explain, diagnose, or change its characters. It just wants to show them to you in all their painful glory, and I think it does a very good job of it. Then again, maybe it's just a case of been there, done that.

In the late 1980's, an inexperienced young woman named Yu Hong leaves her hometown and boyfriend in the provinces to attend Beijing University. Almost immediately, she falls into a passionate love/hate relationship with a fellow student at the school. This torrid affair plays out partly against the backdrop of the student protests and subsequent massacre that occurred in Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989. (The movie also takes place briefly in Germany, the other part of the world where significant social change was occurring in 1989).

"Summer Palace" plays almost like the autopsy of a romantic obsession, attempting to get at the root of why we love in the way that we do. A novice at true love, Yu Hong understands neither her undying passion for Zhou Wei nor her seemingly incessant need to keep sabotaging their relationship. The closest she can come to grasping this paradox is when she says to Zhou Wei: "I want to break up…because I can't leave you." Love is seen almost as a form of mental illness in this film - as a debilitating, all-consuming condition that one is powerless to control or "cure" but which, if left unchecked, can become the single dominant force in a person's life (we rarely see Yu Hong studying, let alone going to class). One can attempt to fill the void with other loves, but the heart always comes back to the same place.

"Summer Palace" is long and occasionally repetitious and the political aspects aren't as effectively integrated into the story as they perhaps might have been, but the movie is beautifully acted by Lei Hao and Xiaodong Guo, among others, and features incisive and sensitive direction by Ye Lou (who, along with Feng Mei and Ma Yingli, co-authored the screenplay). This is a largely impressionistic film, concentrating more on mood, imagery and emotions than on narrative. The last hour of the film - so filled with longing and regret as the characters age and attempt to come to terms with the special thing they have lost - is particularly lyrical and heartbreaking and will haunt you long after the movie is over.

All told, "Summer Palace" is an intelligent and moving rumination on that mysterious force we call love.

Having watched the movie myself and reading some of the comments/reviews with regards to the movie prompted me to post something in fairness to the movie.

I feel that the movie was meant to let audience have a feeling that the leads in the movies are lost. If we were to think of the backdrop of the movie, set in the late 80's, Tiananmen incident, the chant for democracy, all this would have let you understand that the China then was not a China that many could understand.

The China up till the 80s was probably such a controlled and suppressed place to live in, and when these suppressed feelings and emotions were suddenly set free, it was like an explosion. The literature and external factors began influencing the way the people viewed and did things. This could explain the "mindless" love making scenes as the desires to love and to have sex were probably something that was not openly displayed or demonstrated. Freedom is what everyone wants, but the maturity to handle the consequence of the actions brought about by freedom might not be something that everyone can handle.

The movie also explores on people who dare not love. All because they fear losing it. I personally felt the characterization was done quite well, and was aptly shown by the character Yu Hong. Love is not something that can be explained logically or defined in any one way. The insight to the characters views and actions in this movie shows that clearly.

Summer Palace is a movie worth watching, but it might not be a movie that is for everyone. Keep an open mind and try and understand the time and country this movie is set in, you'd probably appreciate the movie much better that way.

This film caught me from the moment it started at my screen. we see a young girl encountering her first experiences with love and sex.set at the decor of the huge changes China is undergoing in the mid-eighties.She is excepted at university and meets a handsome guy she's so overpowering in love with , it's scary...wow , the acting , directing ,editing, photography...is breathtaking..the story sometimes heartbreaking..trough sidesteps we are witnessing the student uproar at tianamen square etc.the 2 main characters loose sight of each other and we follow moments of their separate lives.. A breathtaking lovestory about love so strong , it hurts. definitely worth watching.